3951 BBY, Peragus Mining Facility

Eden

Another droid down, another memory of a slain soldier falling, body-turned-corpse by the time they hit the ground if they had been lucky. Most weren't.

"Emergency lockdown overridden," a soothing voice cooed at her over a loudspeaker as Eden bashed her way through another malfunctioning door, the shockstick hot in her clammy palms. She was beginning to wonder if this was a test of her sanity somehow, an elaborate ruse created as a means of finally punishing her for what happened at Malachor, and every battle that preceded it.

Downing another droid and ignoring another corpse, Eden sped into the last room at the end of another long windowless hallway, eager to be free of this place - whatever it happened to be. Dozens of blank screens stared down at her from three of the four imposing walls upon entering, each screen static-heavy. The ceilings were oddly high for a room this size, as if it were choking on consoles, and the static only made her feel less at ease. But the room's many screens were silent, barely humming as Eden kicked the last droid she'd destroyed out of the way so she could enter the room proper.

She hated this. She hated that this place had no windows, that everyone in this place had either died or disappeared, and she hated having to destroy all the droids. Given the proper tools, Eden could disable them, at least. Once-upon-a-time she would have been able to set any machine in stasis with a wave of the Force. But the Force had no mind to cooperate with her now, still intent on flowing through her more powerfully and unpredictably than she'd ever felt it, setting the one droid she tested the trick with on fire without so much as a flick of her forefinger.

Eden sighed as she slid into the security chair to find the vinyl already warm, as if someone had just been sitting in it. The Force told her she was alone here, and a moment later she felt the heat from the nearby computer reach her skin, never having been powered off. Sighing, both relieved and unnerved, Eden fiddled with the command console and demanded it play the last security log.

"The next one of you juma-heads to try and smuggle a blaster, or so help me, any sort of military-grade frag weapons into my facility, is going to take a long walk out the airlock."

This does not bode well, a voice drawled in her head. Eden spun around to find no one in the room with her, her skin prickling with goosebumps as the realization crept in.

"Kreia?" she said to no one, only to have the recording respond instead.

"So if I catch any one of you with anything other than sonic charges or mining lasers, I'll burn you and your contract. Security out."

Mining lasers, Kreia's voice echoed in her head again, that would explain the poor quality of the facilities here. Eden could almost see Kreia look about the room she was situated in, disappointed, still resting in the morgue where Eden had found her. I'd suggest we leave sooner rather than later, this place could be more dangerous than we know.

"Kreia?" Eden stammered, knowing full-well that she was capable of Force bonds, but she'd never experienced one this direct other than the one she shared from birth with her brother. Her brother. Aiden's face swam into her mind from memory, both the boy he'd been and the man he'd become as she had last seen him briefly on Tatooine, before biting the thought back lest Kreia could see. "We only just met. How are we - ?"

She should have known. Eden had heard Kreia's voice in the kolto tank, calling out to her. Kreia said they'd met earlier on the Harbinger. But a woman, no matter how strong in the Force, couldn't have opened Eden up to the Force again and tethered herself to her - could she?

I don't know, Kreia said eventually, the matching disbelief in her voice convincing enough for the moment. Perhaps we can use this to our advantage for now and explore the intricacies later. I fear we are running out of time.

In that moment Eden recalled Kreia's story, her retelling of an attacker in space, and again on the Harbinger. With her brother's face still fresh in her memory, his green eyes aglow beneath the twin suns of Tatooine, Eden wondered if he was also the assailant that hunted them now. If Eden was open to the Force again, Aiden would surely know it. He would feel it. Doing what she could, Eden wracked her brain so her focus remained on Kreia as she shoved her brother out of her mind.

"I'm game with that," Eden said, wondering if Kreia could sense her unease or her newness to the Force, wondering if she should have mentioned this earlier. "Let me know if you sense anything else."

Will do, Kreia said, echoing Eden's words from earlier as her presence dissipated, leaving Eden alone in the security room again.

Eden sighed, her lungs expunged as if she'd just resurfaced from a deep-dive underwater.

"I don't like this," Eden muttered to herself as she eyed the security console, shaking her head. "No. I hate this."

After replaying the last security log again, Eden keyed in a demand to pull up all log info. There was no login name, just a number, and 0897715 must have been the designation assigned to the dark-haired and perpetually on-edge security officer of this place.

There were earlier logs but none were recent. The last entry was a terse report about a suspect being held in the detention bay, so Eden figured she should start there. If anything, even if the suspect was dead, she might have a better idea of what happened here.

If this was a mining facility, the most likely tragedy to befall this place would be an explosion, right? But if the place was still standing…

Nothing added up. If anything, sabotage was the more likely culprit. But why, or how Eden factored into all of this, was still a mystery. Judging by the logs back in the medbay, the kolto patients were saturated with a deadly amount of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory. Harmless in small doses but likely to cause overdose under the wrong circumstances. As a Jedi, her body had been trained to resist most poisons so it was unclear whether she was even an intended victim since she received the same dose as everyone else. But seeing as she and Kreia were the only survivors on this otherwise abandoned facility, it was strange that the only two remaining people alive were not only newcomers but also Force-sensitive. Perhaps the kolto room was dosed just-so on purpose, so that according to the record it looked as if Eden should have died along with everyone else...

It was either meticulously planned or a very, very cruel coincidence.

There are no coincidences, Alek had whispered reverently to her once while they both watched on as Revan retrieved a slain Mandalorian's mask from the seafoam after witnessing the genocide at Cathar, glimpsing the multitude of terrors to come. There is only the Force.

Pushing away from the desk, Eden skidded the security chair backward, hopping off before it could collide with the far wall. On the wall adjacent to the one she entered through was another door, tucked beneath the largest of the security feeds still emitting static. Ducking under it, Eden exited the room and finally saw stars.

The room beyond was enormous, almost as large as a viewing deck on any of Revan's warships. Several clusters of computer stations scattered the open area. Some surrounded sprawling ceiling-high neon maps while others dotted the promenade in groups of three beside buzzing power conduits. But it was the mainframe computers that lined the far wall that drew her attention, offering a view of something Eden wasn't expecting she'd be so comforted to see - space.

Three massive computer stations stood in the center of the room, overlooking the view. The seemingly endless expanse of duraglass set before them lent a glimpse into the world outside the facility, allowing Eden a view of far-off stars and what appeared to be a circling asteroid field. Wandering towards it, as if entranced, Eden's mind slowed, her eyes glazing over as she soaked in the spacescape, wondering what it might feel like to drift as listlessly as a piece of space debris.

But that was when she felt it - a prickling, a mental itch that set the hair on the back of her neck to stand on end. At first it was just a feeling, goosebumps rising along her arms at the thought. But then there was a surge of energy, as if a computer nearby just powered on, its electric hum filling the empty space with ambient sound. Life. Someone was still here.

Eden spun around, now standing in the middle of the command center, trying to find the source of the feeling. The Force was still off-kilter as it flowed through her, both amplified yet ambivalent. After dredging up what she could of an old centering technique from the depths of her memory, Eden's gaze settled over a nondescript door tucked into the back corner of the room, almost imperceptible beside a gaping hallway that led elsewhere.

The detention center. It had to be.

Eden approached, finding that the door opened the moment it sensed her presence. She paused, eyes darting at the door's mechanism before it disappeared entirely into the walls beside her.

"That's weird," she muttered, spinning around and finding no one. None of the other doors in this place were open, each one requiring either a bypass or a downed droid to get through, and this one had neither.

"Weird? I'll give ya weird," a voice said from the far end of the room.

Eden spun around again to face what appeared to be the facility's only two force cages, one of which was occupied with a brown blur of a human being.

"Weird… weird is what I'd call that mining outfit," the voice continued with croaking syllables, which Eden now realized belonged to a very sickly looking man slumped at the bottom of the detention cell as if he'd melted there. The man cleared his throat. "What, you miners change the regulation uniform while I've been in here? Not that I'm complaining or anything."

Eden approached slowly, as if nearing a trapped animal. Recalling the security officer's log, she said, "Atton… Atton Rand?" as she looked the dark-haired stranger up and down, unsure what to do with her first survivor, though thankful she'd found one.

The man swallowed and gawked, blank-eyed, before finally taking a breath and answering as he nodded.

"Excuse me if I don't shake hands. The field only causes mild electrical burns."

The pale humanoid man Eden now knew for certain was called Atton held out his arm, even though the cage was still active, and with glassy eyes he shook the empty air with his raised hand, miming as if the force cage weren't there at all and Eden were eager to greet him.

"Eden," she said unsurely, the name tasting strange on her mouth as she said it. "Eden Valen. And I'll pretend you didn't just deliriously try to flirt with me."

Valen, Vale. Something about the name stuck out but Eden wasn't sure what, only knowing that she hadn't actually introduced herself to Kreia and wondering if the woman thought ill of her for it.

"Valen, huh?" the man repeated, smacking his lips and hiding it poorly with what was likely dry mouth from severe dehydration, "You didn't fight in the war, did you?"

"Which one?" Eden deflected by laughing darkly, examining the room. There was little evidence of any activity in here, other than some meager truth to the man named Atton's gaunt features - a lone bowl of half-eaten stew sat on one of the desks, the leftover remains congealed to the point of being considered a solid rather than a liquid. He must have been stuck in here for days.

"Heh, it never ends does it?" Atton drawled, mustering up what little energy he had to appear cordial. "Hey, you don't see any-?"

Before the man could clumsily finish a sentence, Eden spotted a ration stick sitting on the edge of the desk, still in its wrapper. She picked it up just as she pressed her palm to what appeared to be the force cage's controls, allowing the barrier to dissolve just quickly enough for her to toss the thing. Atton scrambled to catch it just as Eden reactivated the cage and stepped closer.

"Why don't you tell me why you're in here first," Eden demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.

She almost felt impolite watching as the man ripped through the ration stick's packaging, ravenously consuming the entire thing in two desperate bites. Atton closed his eyes as he savored the sustenance, a swath of dark hair falling into his eyeline, and for a moment Eden thought the man was about to be sick. But then color flooded his face as he stood to full height, stretching with such relish that several of his joints popped in quick succession, a strange smile spreading over his face.

This man hadn't eaten in days, that much was clear. It was a wonder he was still alive. His face was awash with stubble, which meant he was usually clean-shaven or at least had been before whatever landed him in here. He wasn't wearing a uniform, instead sporting a usual spacer's garb, typical of anyone Eden might see wandering a docking bay or a cantina bar. Nondescript but casual. His cheeks were gaunt and his eyes sunken, though she could see the life trickle back into what Eden guessed were brown eyes from what she could tell through the orange glow of the force cage.

It took a moment for Atton to catch up with her words, Eden's unanswered question still hanging in the air between them. He opened his mouth, about to answer, when he stopped himself, his eyes going wide.

"What?" Eden asked, finally feeling cold for the first time since awakening, vulnerable in only a damp jumpsuit.

"You," he said, backing into the force cage though careful enough not to touch the edges, "You're that Jedi the miners were talking about."

Jedi. There it was again.

"I'm gonna need you to back up here," Eden said as she twirled her index finger in a whirlwind motion as her blood ran hot at the man's implication, the second in just under an hour, "What Jedi? And what miners? This place is… deserted."

"It's not deserted, it's-" he said suddenly before stopping, his voice growing hollow as the realization sunk in. Atton slumped against the back of the force cage again, his gaze never leaving Eden's, shock painting his face. "They're all dead, aren't they?"

Eden bit in her lip, creating a thin line where her mouth once was as every image of each corpse she'd unwittingly come across in the last hour resurfaced in her mind's eye. She nodded.

Atton shook his head, leaning against the only uncharged wall of his cell as he closed his eyes, nursing his temples as he sought the right words for what Eden feared was a story she didn't want to hear.

"There were rumors," he said as his gaze glazed over upon opening his eyes, his voice a husk of what it was only moments ago, "Unfounded, naturally, though in hindsight maybe they weren't. No one's seen a Jedi since that big disaster happened, whatever that was all about. But that doesn't stop people from talking, right?"

Judging by the way Atton spoke, even in his half-starved state, Eden could tell the man was fond of talking, and he was certainly relishing in it now as he pretended not to sneak glances of Eden's still-glistening legs from his vantage point during every dramatic pause.

"They found a ship apparently. I'm not sure, I just got back from shore leave when it happened," Atton laughed a hollow laugh, "But when I got back, there were bets on who exactly was recovered from the ship. There were even a few attempts at sneaking weapons onto the facility. The two are probably connected, and what with the bounty on Jedi-"

"Bounty?" Eden interrupted.

"Yeah, haven't you heard? The Exchange put out a bounty on Jedi about a week ago. Maybe they want one as a trophy, or someone's got something against the Jedi and is looking to collect."

Eden nodded, doing what she could to appear only mildly interested as she crossed her arms tighter around herself before turning to pace the room, thinking it better that Atton couldn't read her expression. So it's not just me, she thought, recalling the release of her records as Glitch and Orex scrolled through the listing back on the ancient console parked in Eden's droid salvage on Tatooine. Still, whether the miners knew who she was or not, the fact that she was pegged as a Jedi was the reason everyone here was dead. If I hadn't come here...

"Not many Jedi left…" Atton continued. "Wouldn't surprise me if the bounty's pretty high."

"Yeah, I bet," Eden said, trying her best to banish the guilt from filling her chest as her eyes scanned the remainder of the room. Like the rest of the facility, everything looked to have been left in a hurry. The console in the corner of the room was still active, and a cup of caf sat undrunk in a now-crusted puddle on the desktop. Next to it was a fresh flask. Eden had seen these things marketed all over the docking bay of Nespis, advertised as the best cooling thermos this side of Coruscant. She picked it up as Atton mumbled behind her, opening it to find it full of fresh cool water.

"The ones that weren't killed in the Jedi Civil War ended up switching off their lightsabers years ago. Word is there isn't even a Jedi Council anymore-"

Before Eden could intervene or question how much a spacer like Atton would know about the Jedi, she took the bottle to her lips and drank deeply, closing her eyes as the chilled water met her tongue, the back of her mouth, her throat, filling her chest with a calming coolness she wanted to soak her entire body in.

"-but who knows?"

Atton wasn't paying close enough attention to realize that Eden was no longer listening, though she could feel his eyes on the back of her exposed legs as she turned away from him, savoring in the moment as she quenched a thirst she hadn't realized was there, wishing briefly that she'd kept that ration stick for herself as well.

"But wait… if you're a Jedi, wouldn't you know about all this?"

Atton's brow furrowed as she turned to face him, the half-filled flask still in her hands.

Eden ignored his question and opened the force cage again, this time leaving it open. She sighed and slumped her shoulders.

"Here, drink."

Eden regretted the handoff the moment Atton reached for the fresher flask despite knowing it was the right thing to do. Atton looked from her to the contents of the container only once before drinking from it himself, tilting his head back as he left no droplet undrunk.

Be mindful, Kreia's voice interjected as Eden watched Atton, taking in his appearance again without the orange-wash of the force cage obstructing her view, though the starved nature of his face didn't do much to paint a better picture. This one's thoughts are… difficult to read.

Eden tried not to jolt at the sensation of the woman's voice again. Though soothing, it was still unnerving to have Kreia butt into her own thoughts at unpredictable moments. Before Eden could wonder just how much Kreia could see and how long she'd been watching, she dwelled on Kreia's presence, silently asking the woman to keep going, to tell her more.

But you have nothing to fear from this one, Kreia continued after a long moment. I am afraid he might yet prove useful.

Afraid? Eden echoed mentally, but Kreia was already gone from her mind before she could dwell on the word, the man before her already stirring.

"You didn't have to do that," Atton breathed upon finishing, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

"No, I didn't," Eden sighed, noting that he already looked more bright-eyed and cognizant now that he was minimally hydrated. "And I don't have to let you out of this force cage either. But I will."

Atton stood, shaking his head, about to launch into another monologue before Eden stopped him.

"Don't ask me how I know, but I don't think you're responsible for-" Eden looked behind her at the open doorway, knowing where every corpse she'd come across still lay, thankful none of them were in her line of sight now, "I know you're not behind whatever happened to this place. I know you're guilty of something, but… not that. The timeline doesn't make sense."

"Trumped up security charges, you know how it is," Atton laughed a little too lightly, too quickly. Eden only nodded, already uncomfortable with the fact that her opinion was based more on Kreia's words than on anything that exited Atton's mouth, second-guessing herself and her fellow Not-a-Jedi as each moment passed.

"The miners can't all be gone," Atton continued, a hurried desperation sneaking into his voice.

"I haven't checked the entire facility yet, if that eases your conscience," Eden continued before Atton could form any more coherent words, "I've only been through the medbay and security."

"Then maybe they're still in the dorms, the docking area, maybe even the mines-"

Atton hurried past her towards the command consoles in the room beyond the detention center, his pace slowing only for a moment as he took in the emptiness of the room before panic resumed and urged him onward towards the main command center. Before Eden could ask what the man was even doing, Atton was typing away furiously, calling up security cameras and access logs, growing increasingly manic as each feed showed nothing but stillness, each one devoid of life or activity.

"This can't be right," he muttered as Eden approached, "It couldn't have been more than, what, two days? Three?"

Eden inspected the stubble on his jaw again, the gauntness of his face, unsure if the man's perception of time was off or on-point, still unsure of when she arrived on this facility herself.

"Everything is locked," Atton said, his fingers pressing the console buttons harder than necessary in his untempered frustration, "Emergency lock down my ass."

Eden was about to say something but paused as Atton pulled up a map of the entire facility. Just as he'd said, every access to another marked location - the dorms, the mines, the cafeteria, the docking bay - was barred, marked in flashing red on the screen. There was still a ship marked as docked in the garage just beyond the dormitory, and while Eden had no idea if it was the one Kreia spoke of, it was their only shot out of getting off this rock.

"You mentioned miners," Eden said as she finally turned from the map back to Atton, cautious to keep her tone gentle, curious if anything, "But… of what exactly? There are mining droids littered everywhere, and-"

Atton turned to look at her, his eyes wild, expression tensed in a silent what?!

"You mean… you didn't come here on purpose?"

Eden swallowed, her eyes jumping from Atton's surprise to the duraglass view of circling asteroids as she shook her head, shrugging.

"I was unconscious when I got here so I don't remember much. All I know is that I ended up here by accident. I think I was originally headed for…" she searched her memory, most of the recent stuff still foggy, but she could feel the planet's name on the tip of her tongue, "Onderon, maybe? No - Telos."

Onderon had been part of her cover, but Telos had been the destination. Details swam in her memory like a shadow in her peripheral vision, taking shape but of nothing yet concrete.

"Telos," Atton echoed, still typing away, "Telos, yeah, that makes sense. Well, this slice of paradise is Peragus II, the only supplier of shipping-grade engine fuel to this corner of the galaxy. Telos being one of our main buyers."

Our. So Atton Rand was an employee here, at least at some point.

"Wonderful," Eden replied, trying to sound more annoyed by the implications rather than the cause, "Glad to know no one will miss this place operating as expected."

At this, Atton truly afforded Eden a glance, looking her up and down in more of a 'is this lady seriously cracking jokes?' way rather than the 'this half-naked interrogation is a personal fantasy of mine' look he'd been giving her thus far.

"You sure you're a Jedi?" he asked, a hungry sense of bravado elevating his voice above the barely-functioning state he was currently in and trying to ignore, for her benefit as well as his own.

"Never said I was," Eden replied as she flashed him a fake smile. "And open the lock on the mining shaft entrance while you're in the master controls, will you?"

"I'm-" Atton balked, "What? Why?!"

"Because I'm going down there," Eden said, squaring her shoulders as she grabbed a comm from the command console beside Atton and brandished it in the air between them, "It's the only way to get to the docking area, and if we want to get off of this likely-explosive rock as you've just explained, then we'd better find a way out of here fast."

"We," Atton repeated, almost choking on the word, "Who's we?"

"I could leave you here to die, if you want," Eden shrugged, ignoring the question as she began to walk backwards towards the barred hallway she'd seen earlier beside the door she found Atton behind, now knowing that the only thing stopping her from going through it was the press of a button. "Either way, I'm finding a way through that door. Are you going to make it easy for me or not? It's no skin off your back."

Atton's eyes widened and then narrowed as he shook his head, the confusion making his already gaunt face appear even more sickly as Eden backed away from him, awaiting a response.

"Suit yourself," he finally said, pressing a series of buttons before giving Eden one last look. "Trust me, if there are any miners left I want to find them. But we can easily use the console here to check up on the other sectors of the facility. Before I landed myself in that cell, I was in the medbay recovering from a planned explosion. If you're willing to get yourself blown up just to get out of here, be my guest."

Atton shrugged, his shoulders jutting upward a little too quickly before he punched in the final code that opened the door Eden was still nearing.

"You won't regret it," she called after him, thankful to be alone again.

"Don't make me change my mind!" Atton called back after her, the hunger returning to his voice as he fell out of view.

You and me, both.


3951 BBY, Jedi Temple Ruins, Dantooine

Erebus

Erebus nearly retched with every breath. Each time his lungs took in oxygen, his body threatened to reject it. His gag reflex reacted to every mouthful of air as if it were poison.

"Easy, easy," a voice said through the haze. It sounded as if it came from beside him, but his vision told him otherwise. His body was slumped against a rough wall, he could feel it, but his consciousness was roaming some mid-grade mining facility - he saw the malfunctioning droids milling about, the readouts of power supplies lining the walls. He'd exploited a few similar outfits in the Unknown Regions, but none as advanced as this. Outer Rim Territories, most likely, he thought, trying to bite back his surprise at witnessing events he was clearly not present for but experiencing nonetheless.

"Can you hear me?" the voice asked. "Can you see anything?"

"Yes to the first," Erebus struggled, his voice sounding far away even as it erupted from his own throat, "And yes to the second, though… likely not what's in front of me."

"What do you see?"

Something about the tone of the voice, its closeness, told him that it was Master Vash, attentive at his side. A foggy memory of what had transpired before his current state swam in his consciousness, melding with what he was seeing now.

"I see…" his vision blurred, changing drastically from the mining outfit to somewhere out in the jungle, marred by a rain so heavy it blocked everything else from view. But the smell… the smell. Wet earth, sweat, blood. It filled his nostrils as if these things were laid before him as specimens for examination. But before he could place the images, put a place-name to the sights and smells, the image shifted to an empty dormitory, void of life but full of death. And then... nothing.

"Nevermind," the voice rejoined, "Just… just breathe, I guess."

Erebus wanted to laugh at Vash sounding so out of her element, surprised that the source of the sound was so clear now that his vision vanished. His mind was in knots, reconciling senses from different places, different times, and not all of them his own.

"I think…" he said eventually, his voice much weaker than he intended but stronger than he felt, "I think I feel her through the Force. Like I did before, when we were children." He knew he wasn't being clear enough for Vash to understand. His mind struggled to find the right words and internally cringed at the ones that managed to pass his lips. "I see what she sees."

It was the jungle that gave it away. He'd seen it once, through her eyes. It was why he later elected to investigate the Dxun moon on Nihilus' behalf. He knew the Temple of Freedon Nadd would be of interest to him as a site of once-teeming dark side power, but knowing that Eden may have come upon the relic herself made him want to visit it far more than if she hadn't. More than he'd like to admit.

"Your sister?" Vash confirmed, "Are you sure?"

"Oh, I'm sure."

The last he'd seen her, she'd been wide-eyed on Tatooine, and while he had no reason to believe she had any business roaming a deserted mining outfit, Erebus knew without a doubt that Eden was doing just that. He laughed.

"What is it?" Vash asked, incredulous.

Erebus fought back another wave of nausea as all the energy within him drained, a laugh dying on his lips. Eden's presence grew stronger again - through her eyes he saw an abandoned repair bay full of disabled droids, slumped as if in submission, after which he witnessed Eden's deft hands work away at a lab workbench, hastily slapping together subpar medpacs and shoving the slim cylinders into the folds of her hair, no pockets or bags to be found. Eden closed her eyes, breathing in deeply, and suddenly Erebus felt himself level out. His body solidified, his unease quelled, and his eyes opened.

"What?" Vash asked, her brown eyes swimming into his slowly focusing vision. "What happened?"

"She…" Erebus paused, breathing in, relishing in how natural it felt now, how steady his body felt compared to before, "She's getting used to it again. The Force."

And so am I.

"She can feel it again? She's open to it?" Vash asked, the words exiting her mouth faster than she could enunciate the syllables, stumbling through her question as she went. Erebus nodded. He almost laughed at the look of excitement in Vash's eyes, only stopping himself because he knew why she might be so eager for this news. She knew it would happen. She's seen it all before.

"She has full control. Well… sort of."

He wanted to laugh again. It was very much like when they were children, still so new to this sensation as they stumbled through every discovery. He wasn't experiencing it directly, but the newness to the Force felt fresh in his memory, having just witnessed his twin sister revisit it after so many years. Vash looked at him with a furrowed brow.

"Interesting… interesting." Vash shook her head as she began to pace before Erebus. "I cannot quite explain what I felt in the Council chambers the day we sentenced her to exile but… it was soul-crushing. It was like being on the fringe of a whirlpool, or at the mouth of a blackhole. The weight of all your sister had experienced filled the room, choking us with it. With death. Did you feel any of that?"

Erebus shook his head at first, though he eventually nodded.

"Yes and no. I felt it then, but not now. She remembers it but the feeling is different, faraway almost."

"Faraway?" Vash echoed, inching closer with curiosity.

"She doesn't quite feel like a wound," Erebus said, "At least not quite. She feels a bit like she used to, when we were kids."

"From what I recall, you were always able to sense your sister through the Force," Vash said quietly. She paused and looked at Erebus, her expression bashful but probing, as if wondering whether she wanted the answer to the question brimming in her throat. "I've only experienced a Force Bond later in life… what was it like?"

"When we were younger we used to share our thoughts more easily, if not all the time. We grew up knowing nothing else, so we believed that was just how things were." Erebus said through an unwitting smile. He missed it, and he missed her. He'd never admitted it, not at the Academy and not now, but he truly, deeply missed his sister, and seeing through her eyes just now made the feeling all the more real and raw and impossible to ignore. "We learned, eventually. It wasn't until we started keeping secrets from one another, until we got older and learned that it wasn't normal. During the war I'd occasionally see snippets of her life as I'm sure she glimpsed mine, usually when I let my guard down. It was usually as I was falling asleep or just waking up. But sometimes the visions would interrupt whatever I was doing, especially if whatever it was Eden was feeling was… visceral. But towards the end, I-"

I went too deep. I was already drowning.

If Erebus were honest with himself, he'd admit to falling to the Dark Side long before Darth Revan's quick-witted, smooth-tongued assassin reached him on Coruscant several years later. It wasn't so much a fall as much as a gradual wading into the deep end, and Erebus imagined he had been easy to break. Because he'd already been broken for so long. Erebus always believed he fell because of the anger he'd bottled over the years, brimming with unspeakable rage that boiled beyond a breaking point. But he'd never considered that maybe it was also because of the mounting pain and anguish he felt on behalf of his sister, fighting an unwinnable war half a galaxy away, too.

Erebus paused, his throat threatening to spew bile at the memory, his body already weak in its current state. He sputtered, and Vash rushed to his side. Before she made contact, Vash paused, as if remembering their tenuous alliance and the fact that Erebus was no longer her apprentice.

"This place will do that to you," he laughed weakly, reading her expression. Judging by her recoil, Erebus was right. "Ghosts, everywhere. Memories… lingering yes, but no longer true."

But he wasn't just referring to his and Vash's previous relationship. He thought also of his sister and wherever it was she roamed now, awake to the Force in nearly a decade and scared out of her mind.

"I've never felt true fear, not until that day." Vash said after a moment, avoiding Erebus' gaze. "I didn't expect to feel it again, when we left Nespis."

Nihilus.

Before Eden had gone quiet to the Force, Erebus sensed her one last time and it was unlike anything he had ever felt before. The only thing he could liken it to was the flash before a bomb went off, a burst of light followed only by the sudden absence of sound. But nothing after. No big boom, no thunderous roar of destruction. Just… nothing. An endless, vacuous nothingness. Which was exactly what Erebus felt whenever he was in Nihilus' presence - a cosmic absence. Maybe that was why it had been so easy to fall into Nihilus' employ, why the fear spurred him on instead of horrified him. It was familiar, yet unlike Eden following Nihilus was at least somewhat tangible. Until now.

"What did you see? Where is your sister now?" Vash said, interrupting Erebus' thoughts.

"A mining facility, though I'm not sure what of, or where," he said, closing his eyes as if to better dredge up the more recent memory in light of his older ones. "Wherever it is, something bad's happened."

"What makes you say that?"

From what he saw through Eden's eyes, the bodies in the dormitory were enough. But it was more than that.

"A feeling, mostly," he said, "Whatever happened there wasn't an accident, this was deliberate."

This was murder.

This was a fact Erebus didn't think Eden was aware of, her senses still swimming the last he'd seen of her. But as his visions gained clarity, the details slowly falling into focus as the immediate world around Erebus also grew more tangible, the truth became obvious in the recollection.

"But what happened exactly?"

"The entire facility is abandoned, everyone dead except her. An accident did take place I think, but what happened to the miners…" Erebus shook his head, suddenly overcome with the dread Eden felt upon entering a barred room only to find the bodies piled by the door, eager for an escape they would never achieve. And in that moment, he knew why Eden thought of the Dxun jungles, and the horrors she'd once witnessed there. "Someone drugged them, at least the ones I saw. And all to make sure no one made it out of that facility alive. But I think they're after her."

"They're after Eden?" Vash confirmed.

Erebus nodded. "You said it yourself. Not only does the Exchange have a bounty out on all Jedi, but they put a pretty steep price on her head, specifically. It's no coincidence, trust me."

"You don't have evidence of this," Vash said, a smirk overcoming her face. "But you believe it?"

Erebus sensed that Vash's disbelief did not stem from doubt, but instead a shared feeling of absolution.

"I do," he said, finally shifting in his seat. "Wait - where are we?"

With the moments before his blackout finally clear in his memory, Erebus almost expected to find himself still slumped on the floor of the Dantooine archives. Instead, he found himself sitting on a dilapidated cot in the old medbay against a crumbling wall looking at a tree-trunk growing through the center of the room. The young blba's branches breached the cracked ceiling as they reached for the open sky.

"The archives were… compromised." Vash's eyes darted around the room, her voice growing quiet.

Erebus sat up, blinking as he soaked in his new surroundings, following her gaze while also looking for the source of her worry. He'd frequented this room often as a child, plagued with stomach aches and anxieties in the wake of leaving his mother and his grandparents, eager for the confines of the medbay or his own dormitory bed whenever Eden wasn't around to calm him and ground him to the present. Now, the medbay was open to the sky. Only the left half of the room was at all recognizable in comparison to its collapsed right half. Erebus squinted. Holding a hand up to the non-existent ceiling, he could tell it was dusk now, the sky ablaze in orange, and Mical was nowhere to be found.

"Where's -?"

"He's buying us time," Vash said. "As soon as you're well enough to move, we need to go."

"Why? What happened?"

"We met with some of Mical's contacts, but they're not the ones we need to worry about," Vash looked over her shoulder, as if expecting someone to materialize there. "We haven't seen the last of the Golden Company, it seems."

"Those bastards," Erebus hissed. "What are they doing here?"

"What they were doing on Nespis, I suppose. Hunting Jedi and Jedi artifacts."

"It's a wonder they hadn't scoured the place before," Erebus said, finding himself less than surprised but confused nonetheless. "Dantooine has been a mess for years. Why wait to raid the place?"

"The same reason you failed to return, I assume?" Vash said, uttering a hollow laugh. "The place may have been in ruins, but the Jedi remained for some time. At least, until Katarr."

"And now with Vrook in hiding…" Erebus started, but Vash nodded before he could elaborate. "What better timing, no?"

Erebus huffed a hollow laugh and swung his legs over the side of the medbay cot, feeling stronger than he had in months, but also more vulnerable than he had in years. Pushing the feelings from his mind, he stood. Vash watched on, her hands poised as if ready to steady him if he needed it.

"What's curious too, I think, is that there is a bounty on Jedi at all," Erebus continued. "Most sources say the Jedi are gone, all killed at Katarr. Now you and I both know that isn't true, but doesn't that mean someone in the Exchange might be privy to where at least one outlier might be located? Why put a bounty out on a people the galaxy believes to be extinct?"

Vash frowned, the space between her eyebrows knotting as she tried to read Erebus' expression, likely full of snark and remnant nausea no doubt.

"Are you fit to travel?" she asked instead, ignoring his pet theory.

Erebus rolled his eyes and nodded. He still needed sleep, at least a week's worth, but he wasn't about to let a commercial mercenary company get the best of him just yet.

"Where are we headed next? Just… away from here?" Erebus asked just as a feeling gripped him, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end as he let out an almost involuntary whisper. "Do you feel that?"

Part of Erebus was still with Eden's echo, sensing her dread out in the far reaches of space as well as the memory he still had of her lingering here on Dantooine, but at the back of his mind he sensed that he and Vash were no longer alone.

Erebus froze, his green eyes honing in on Vash's brown, suddenly feeling like a child again as their gazes locked. Instead of faltering as he would have as a Padawan, Erebus acted, his free hand reaching for his lightsaber and igniting it instantly, only to find that Vash had done the same. Vash nodded and fell into formation at his back.

"Any ideas?" Erebus whispered over his shoulder, unable to keep the smirk from his face. Despite the adrenaline beginning to course through him as the air around them prickled with nearing energy, he was still surprised that any of this was happening, that he and Vash were fighting side-by-side for an unknown though common goal, and that somewhere on the other end of a nebulous tether that flowed through the Force was his sister, after all these years of being gone to him.

Vash shot Erebus a glance, communicating with a flicker of an eyebrow that whatever she was about to say was a lie.

"We might be able to get out of here," she said, her eyes briefly glancing at the far end of the room. Erebus felt them there too, trickling in through the caved-in ceiling, snaking down the branches of the blba tree without so much as disturbing a budding leaf.

"Stay quiet, we just need to -"

"Not so fast."

Static filled the air as a series of silhouettes materialized in the space around them before transforming into full-bodied people, armor and all. A row of blaster-rifles pointed at them from all directions, inching closer, ignoring their ignited sabers and the electric thrum they added to the otherwise silent room.

"Stupid move, really," Erebus said, nonchalantly. "Blade trumps blaster in close quarters. Everyone knows that."

With a flourish, Erebus cut upward and the blaster before him split in two. Just as the man standing in front of him faltered, the woman beside him fired and sent a flurry of laser fire his way only for Vash to parry them with ease, directing each blast at the wall behind their assailants to cast debris down on their heads. As every other blaster pointed at Vash in response, Erebus urged his connection with the Force forward, sending tendrils outward until he could feel his energy lick the metallic tang of each rifle. Smiling, he took hold and pulled.

Every weapon in the room clattered to the floor, hidden pieces flying out from covert pockets as even errant buttons and buckles came loose to join the fray. Erebus grinned as he watched the wide eyes of each mercenary observed in horror as every one of their tools disintegrated in a flurry of violet-white sparks before their eyes, but just as he savored their expressions Erebus grew cold. He had never once been able to do that - dissolve matter in an instant, absolve anything from existence entirely. He felt Vash's eyes on him, also wide and wondering, and part of Erebus knew that whatever terror gripped her as she watched on was also taking hold inside of him at the realization.

This is new.

"We don't have it, whatever you're looking for," Erebus croaked, the surprise still weighing on his voice.

"So that means you know where it is," another voice said.

Most of the group cowered back, but one armored merc stepped closer, the visor of her helmet glinting in the light of Erebus' blade.

"'Fraid not." Erebus said, extending his free hand again, sending every merc body in their vicinity up against the wall. "Now, if you'll excuse us-"

"Stop right there," another merc said with effort, pulling themselves from the wall as they made their way towards Erebus. A gloved hand reached out and snatched his - white, like the Echani's back on Nespis had been. And just as it had happened then, his Force powers dampened on contact. Before he could wonder what happened to the identical quintuplets or whatever they'd been back on the Nespis the merc holding his wrist froze.

"Or what?" Erebus asked, unsure whether he should slash straight through this merc's torso and be done with it but finding himself unable to act because none of what was happening made sense. The white-gloved hand was still clamped around Erebus' wrist, but the merc's voice only gurgled beneath their helmet, revealing nothing.

Erebus turned to Vash only to find her eyes wide.

"Aiden," she said, her memory lapsing in the moment as she stared at the person before him. Erebus looked back to find blood pouring from beneath the helmet's lip, the merc's gurgling mouth growing louder as Erebus watched on in horror. Erebus pulled back, yanking his hand from the gloved wrist with a shudder. The glove came free as the hand within withered to nothing.

"That's not me," Erebus said, his voice a hallowed whisper, "I-"

I didn't do that.

Death filled the room, and in a way Erebus had only ever felt twice before. The first time was Malachor V, feeling the reeling loss from Eden's perspective as if it were his own, in a single wrenching moment that left him gasping for air on the floor of his apartment even though he was lightyears away. The second time he'd felt it was in Nihilus' presence, everlasting.

But before he could reconcile what was happening to the merc before him, the other mercs collapsed, each of their helmets filling with blood and overflowing once they hit the ground.

"You're welcome," another new voice joined the din, but just as Erebus located the source of the sound a red saber rushed to meet his ready one, the two blades clashing in an instant. Erebus faltered, still wondering how in the world anyone could move so quickly even with the aid of the Force, and how he and Master Vash had failed to sense their presence completely. Before he could reconcile his surprise with a matched disbelief, Erebus' assailant pressed closer, the red blade compelling Erebus' own violet saber closer to his face. And in the warring red and violet light, Erebus recognized her.

"You."

Visas.

The veiled Miraluka materialized, now dominating the space with her billowing cloak and her thick voice, her red saber alight with a fury Erebus knew all too well.

Erebus pushed back, both with his saber and with the Force, sending the veiled woman back only an inch. She smiled, her full lips glistening in the light of the sabers locked between them.

"Master is looking for you," Visas said, her voice barely a whisper above the hum of their blades. "But you already know that, don't you?"

Erebus hardly had a chance to catch his breath before Visas pushed, both in body and in the Force. His boots skidded along the rough floor, clouds of dust billowing in the wake of his heels as the hum of his lightsaber filled his ears.

He was about to pounce when Visas relented, though not in surrender. She relinquished her blade and shrugged as if bored. "Master is looking for you, yes, but now you have been found."

Erebus paused. He looked from Visas to his saber, feeling the full weight of his lack of sleep threatening his head to implode at the notion of any further thought. He retracted his blade, its violet light shrinking to nothing as it plunged the room into an uncomfortable silence.

"I'm not here to fight you," she said, her voice warm as butter. "Only to deliver a message."

"W-wait, what?" Erebus sputtered eventually. "What message would that be?"

Visas only smiled, though the extent of her expression was swallowed by the shadow of her veil.

Visas stilled, crossing her arms as if that were reason enough. Master Vash remained frozen on the other end of the ruined medbay, her eyes wide, a hand hovering over the hilt of her now-sheathed saber.

Erebus felt the Force ebb around them, slow and deliberate, like a lava flow. Visas knew exactly where Vash stood, her Force Sight sensing beyond even that of an average humanoid. She watched and waited. Though her veil did not stir, Erebus knew Nihilus' protégé was surveying the room, studying its every crevice while she patiently stood, motionless.

"Master desires an audience with you," Visas said again, her voice still soft, now filling the quiet with ease. "He is still situated where the Nespis moon once orbited, but he is headed for the

Japrael system."

Where the Nespis moon once orbited. Erebus willed himself not to glance at Vash, knowing her face grew pale at the news.

"What does he require of me?" Erebus' old cadence came easily to him, relief flooding his veins enough to drown out the exhaustion, for now.

"He does not wish for you to pursue the Wound in the Force, which is why I am here. He feared that was your intention on Tatooine, and then on the Nespis moon. But seeing as you are here, he will understand that you are only finishing out your original mission . As it turns out, that mission has become his focus as well."

"I see," Erebus mused, the tension finally leaving his muscles as he turned Visas' words over in his mind. So Nihilus doesn't want me dead, at least not yet. "The Japrael System you said, correct? Does that mean Nihilus intends to resume operations on the Dxun moon?"

Part of the reason Erebus had been an obvious initiate of Nihilus' was his connection to his sister. In studying the Force Wound created by the Mass Shadow Generator, Erebus had been assigned to scout out the places where its pull was greatest. Onderon's moon had always been heavy with it. It was where the ghost of Freedon Nadd had tempted Exar Kun and Ulic Qel Droma to the dark side decades earlier, but it had also been the site of massive bloodshed during the Mandalorian Wars, one of the bloodiest campaigns known in recent history. Even now Erebus knew the moon's jungles still haunted Eden's memory. In fact it was what he had seen her find in a vision that led him there years later: the discovery of a pyramidal crystal much like the one she'd found on Tatooine, a crystal discovered with an army of matching onyx pyramids mirroring it in miniature. She'd sent it to Revan for further research, but there was no record of what happened to the objects after that. Despite the planet's link to Exar Kun, it was the link to Revan that made Erebus look at Vash again, the memory of what they'd discovered in the ruined archives coming into focus once more. The Jedi nodded solemnly. Her vision...

"Master has secured a meeting with one General Vaklu. I believe he wishes for you to meet with him in person, as an emissary on his behalf."

Of course. Onderon had a long and storied history with the Sith, and undoubtedly whatever key Erebus had been missing the last time he'd tried to locate the jungle's secret temple was with the Onderonian government itself. With the civil war, this was an opportune moment to feign an alliance with one of the planet's warring factions, so long as they got the information they needed. And if Nihilus didn't want to consume the planet of its life before they got what they wanted, his best bet at getting the job done was to send someone else in first.

"What makes Nihilus think it will work this time?" Erebus pressed on. "And why did he send you?"

Erebus looked Visas up and down, sensing the pride radiating off of her as she stood there, relaying all of this. And in that moment, Erebus realized that he had never heard Visas speak until now.

"He believes the war to be at a tipping point, granting us just enough leverage to gain a foothold where previously there was none. While you secure our position, I will pursue the Wound in the Force and follow her," Visas said. "I am to monitor her moments and report back as required."

"But why you?" he countered almost too quickly.

"You are too close to this, Darth Erebus," Visas answered, a hush reverence resonating in her sultry voice as she uttered his title. "If we have need of her beyond that, I am sure Master will include you. Eventually, but not yet."

"I see," Erebus muttered, though he was unsure if that were true. "So I am to meet with him now?"

"Not exactly, but sooner rather than later," Visas said, approaching him. She procured a small data cylinder from within her robes, its glow a pale scarlet against her palm as she extended it toward him. "These are to be the Ravager's exact coordinates in a standard week's time. Meet him there as soon as you are able for further instruction. You may bring your Jedi slave if you wish, though Master may have other plans for her."

Visas now physically acknowledged Lonna Vash, turning her veiled head toward her, the glittering gold in her hood's embroidery catching the light from the exposed ceiling above. Vash didn't move.

"Understood," Erebus said as he took the cylinder, careful not to touch Visas. The woman relinquished the data conduit as if dropping something too hot before stepping back again, this time linking her hands behind her back as she did so, nodding.

"Until we meet again, Darth Erebus."

Visas bowed her head and within the blink of an eye, she was gone.


3951 BBY, Peragus Mining Facility

Eden

The door out of the dormitories opened, offering quiet reprieve on the other side. But as soon as Eden crossed the threshold, the door shut behind her with a clunking thud, sparks flying in every which direction as the passage sealed shut with a crunch of metal. Her breath caught, stopping somewhere in her throat as she spun around, her mind suddenly back in the jungles of Dxun, jumping as another trap set off in the trees behind her. The muted sounds of muffled screams rustled from the underbrush, puncturing the thrumming of the constant rains as if it were happening again, in real time.

"Hey, can you read me?" Atton's staticky voice asked, accessing the comm she'd pilfered from the command desk earlier. Eden faltered, struggling to bring herself out of the past and back to the present, though hearing this new voice helped anchor her to the now. "Haven't heard from you in a while now..."

It's just a broken door, it's just a broken door, she repeated in her mind like a mantra, willing herself to forget the massacre she'd found in the dormitories. She closed her eyes, catching her breath with several awkward gulps of air before she was able to speak again.

"Yeah, I can read you loud and clear," Eden said with effort, trying her best to sound normal.

"Good, just- just ring me if you need anything, okay?" Atton offered. Eden froze, unsure of how to read his hospitality. If anything, it was pure survival instinct. The more distance she put between them, the more Eden questioned her decision to set the man free, despite whatever he'd done to deserve it. If the man had any sense, he would only trust Eden as far as she trusted him. And her faith only went as far as it meant getting off this station.

In the silence Eden failed to fill after Atton's request, he obliged with another awkward sign off. "Over and out."

Ugh.

Part of Eden wished she'd eaten that ration bar from earlier, as well as consumed the rest of the water flask she'd surrendered to Atton. She wanted to think she had offered both out of pity, but she knew it wasn't. She'd always been like this. With her brother, with recruits at the Jedi Academy, her troops on the front lines… she'd always given whatever of herself she could to those around her, even if she didn't necessarily want to. Was it because it was the right thing to do? Or because she was so afraid that people only liked her for the way the Force made them feel around her? Inexplicably drawn into her orbit whether she willed it or not?

"Hey, there might be some supplies nearby. Maybe check that canister on your left?" Atton's voice sounded again, pulling Eden out of her reverie as well as scaring her half to death.

Eden laughed darkly, looking up to the high ceilings of the otherwise dim hallway, looking for it. Soon her eyes fell on a slightly exposed corner, likely housing a not-so-hidden security cam just beyond view.

"I don't appreciate you keeping an eye on me like that, you know," Eden said squaring off with the cam, her voice sounding more playful than she felt. It was sickening, how personable she was being. But it was better than making enemies when she knew she couldn't afford that right now. Eden wasn't sure what was worse, Kreia's prying or Atton's. She also wasn't sure there was much of a difference so far.

"I was making sure whatever got to the miners didn't get you too," Atton said, not denying his spying despite the twinge of concern coloring his words. Cute. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd also like to get out of here as soon as possible."

Eden could agree with that. Sighing and looking to her left, Eden saw the canister Atton mentioned. There was an entire pile of plasteel canisters pushed up against the wall, though only one of them was in any state to be opened. The hallway ahead had partially collapsed, part of the storage pile in front of her falling victim to the deluge. While Eden ignored the possible reasons behind whatever created this mess, she wrangled the closest canister open, revealing its contents. Eden still didn't remember much, but the genuine smile that spread across her face at the bounty felt like the first one in a long, long time.

"What, what is it?" Atton asked, his voice cutting out at odd intervals.

"Looks like there's a mining laser in here, and a uniform," Eden answered, pulling the ugly blue thing out in front of her, feeling warm at the thought of it draped over her exposed limbs.

"Damn it," Atton hissed.

Eden paused, unsure if she should be confused or offended. "Excuse me?"

"I mean, good. Uh, good to hear it. No sense in you running around half-naked. It's... it's distracting. I mean, for the droids."

Eden turned and looked at the camera she knew Atton was watching her through and narrowed her eyes at it. "Yeah, I'm sure."

At least Kreia didn't have eyes to oggle her, and for that Eden was oddly grateful.

"Can we keep the chatter to business only, please?" she said. Eden began to step into what she quickly realized was a slightly-too-small uniform. The bodice's zipper only reached half-way up her torso, to which she muttered "You've got to be kidding me."

"Kidding who? What's this talk about kidding business? Kidding only? Okay, you got it." Atton replied, and Eden could hear the snarky smile in his voice as he said it. Oh, so this is how it's going to be?

"No more outfit comments," Eden ordered, abandoning the uniform's upper half and tying the sleeves around her waist so she was at least somewhat modest. And far less cold. At least she had pants now. "Deal?"

"Whatever you say, boss." Atton said, lapsing to cut the comm off before Eden heard him laughing on the other end of it.

"I'm glad one of us is having fun," she murmured, cracking her neck and stretching her arms after she fixed the shockstick and the mining laser to the uniform's sewn-in utility belt. As much as she was growing to despise the current reality she found herself in, Eden had a feeling it was about to get a whole lot worse.

"So, now that the dormitory's cleared-" she began, pausing as she attempted and failed to once again mentally purge the horrors she'd witnessed there. Eden swallowed hard, hoping it would dissolve with time, like everything else.

"Where to next?" she said, already dreading the answer.


3951 BBY, Coruscant
Carth

In the months since he'd last seen her, Carth Onasi had not stopped thinking about Nevarra Draal.

His comm would chime, and an inner part of him fueled by wishful thinking would inspire an inane hope - if only for a single, fleeting moment - that it would be her. That her disappearance would be explained away, that she would announce her imminent return, that he would hear her voice again when every day spent in her absence he started to forget it more and more.

He'd known it would happen. He had expected her to leave - encouraged her, even.

It wasn't the leaving part that bothered him, but the radio silence that followed. For days, weeks, months on end. Nothing.

She had left before and failed to comm or send a message, but he always knew she'd be back. Nevarra would always return with a chagrined smile before falling into his arms, telling him how much she'd missed his scent and how much she craved his companionship in light of whatever new thing it was she had discovered about herself, still reconciling the old with the new. After every foray into her memory, Nevarra would ask that they make more memories. New ones. Together. Because those were the ones that mattered most.

He didn't think she'd been lying, but there was something different about the way she left this time.

Nevarra had taken the Hawk to follow another lead, another memory, and the only other thing she'd taken with her - not clothes, not provisions, not even the damned holo-mystery she had been nose-deep in weeks prior - was her mask. Revan's mask. Recovered from the Star Forge, the only thing that survived the wreckage.

And despite his worried mind, in those moments when he momentarily thought she would call, her face would flash in his mind's eye in perfect detail. The swath of freckles across the bridge of her nose, the slant of her sharp cheekbones, the deep dark of her brown eyes, the small space between her front teeth, the soft black curtain of her hair falling over her right eye, perpetually hindering her vision if she let it. At least he had this part of her, buried somewhere deep, unearthed whenever he thought he might see her once more. Or never again.

And now, today, when Mission called - he could have sworn it was her.

Only he didn't think of Nevarra when the comm chimed. He thought of Revan.

"Carth?" Mission's sing-songish voice called to him before her image appeared, distorted at first before settling into place on the holopad by his desk. Carth rubbed his temples, still tempering the fear that he might never see Nevarra again while anticipating the notion that he might see her previous self instead, "Can you read me?"

"Yeah, yeah, Mission I can hear you."

"Oh, good," she laughed, uncomfortable as she did her best to lighten the mood despite the hollowness in her voice, "Reception's bad down here, but-"

As Mission's image became clearer, Carth could tell she was still discerning her surroundings, her eyes squinting into the distance as Carth's adjoining holo-self likely materialized in front of her - wherever she was - or failed to, considering her previous statement.

"You wouldn't even recognize the place," Mission said, the sudden seriousness in her tone bringing Carth back fully to the present, "It's strange."

Without having to ask and without Mission having to explain, Carth knew she was referring to the old Jedi Temple. He'd been annoyed with the place and its people the last he'd been there, stuck with an amnesiac Jedi and a tempestuous Mission, only calmed if Zaalbar was by her side, stoic as always.

"Tell me the situation," Carth said, his voice curt. Keeping the memories at bay was taking more energy than he'd like. Images of those weeks spent on Dantooine floated to the surface of his mind, muddying his words, just as another memory of a young Captain Malak swam the surface along with it, as Carth had known the man back then, before his Sith title. The Jedi Knight had been so pragmatic, so charming - even after all these years, it was difficult to reconcile that enigmatic idealist with the monster that would later destroy Dantooine and half of the Republic.

"Funny you should use that word," Mission answered, her expression growing tense through a false smile, "Because we have quite the situation at hand, it seems."

Zaalbar growled, annoyed, off screen.

"What is it now?" Carth asked, unease mounting in his chest as he kept his own news quiet, at least for the moment.

"Well, remember how the Administrator mentioned that she was allied with a Jedi? One with access to valuable items that would be bad if left in the wrong hands? Well… he's missing," Mission said. The young woman squared her shoulders, pursing her lips to prevent herself from playing the situation off as no big deal with another friendly but hollow laugh.

"Continue," Carth urged after a moment, sensing that Mission was waiting for a reaction from him but receiving none.

"Oh, right, well… we think that he might have been taken captive. By a terrorist group, or organization, thing. And they've taken control of the old Jedi Archive, by the looks of things..."

If Carth had a headache before, now it was a full-blown migraine.

"If this is some petty attempt to garner Republic aid when we're already scrambling, I-"

Carth had been none too happy to be more or less blackmailed by a backwater planet asking for military resources when recovery from the Jedi Civil War was still draining Coruscant's coffers. Dantooine had a worthy claim, sure, and he'd been just as outraged by the oversight once Mission had explained it to him the previous day, the stern Khoonda Administrator looking over the Twi'lek's shoulder the entire time as her assistant continually butted in with added barbs and remarks. But he also couldn't betray his work with Bastila, something that was still secret as long as the Jedi were being hunted. Acting as if he, or the Republic, didn't care about such things was in their best interest. But he couldn't say that, could he?

"No, no, Asra thought the same thing. Plus I have reason to believe that this terrorist organization now has the support of whoever attempted the takeover at the Jedi Temple on Nespis."

"Oh?" Carth perked up at this, though he was dreading an explanation.

Mission bit her lip and nodded before side-stepping out of view, her holo-double disappearing before another form took her place. A young man replaced her, humanoid and blond-haired.

"Mical," Carth said as the young man nodded.

"Admiral Onasi," Mical breathed, "Pleasure to meet you, sir. I understand that you assigned me to work under Rell on retrieving the Jedi Exile. While I appreciate the assignment, I hope you understand the obligation I held to Zayne Carrick and your friend Bastila's cause that kept me back from joining the rescue crew aboard the Harbinger. it's unfortunate that we must meet formally under these circumstances, but I'm afraid that isn't the first time I've said that in the last standard day."

Carth furrowed a brow, hoping his inquisition came across via holo. Mical shifted his weight from foot to foot before getting the hint and continuing.

"You might not be pleased to hear that I was brought to Dantooine by… rather unusual means."

"Define unusual," Carth sighed, rubbing his temples again.

"Unusual as in Sith," Mical said curtly. Now Carth truly had a headache.

"Explain," he urged almost too quickly, his headache blossoming into a full-on migraine the moment he opened his eyes again. His gaze was marred by double-vision at first, a miniature Mical swimming in duplicate about Carth's field of view for a moment before both holo-forms collided into one as Mical found the right words.

Not Revan, not Revan. No, not her.

"I think he said his name was Erebus," Mical said. "He just so happens to be the Jedi Exile's brother."

Carth knew he had been holding his breath, but the wealth of air that escaped his lungs upon hearing Mical's explanation was larger than expected. Not Revan.

"You have news of General Valen, though?" Carth finally managed, at least thankful that one trail of breadcrumbs was leading somewhere.

"Not yet," Mical continued, "But there's more. Oddly enough I feel that it is tied to the work I had already been doing for Lucien Draay, and eventually Bastila. Some of the Jedi objects on Draay's list are being targeted by the Golden Company. You know of them, yes?"

"Unfortunately," Carth answered, rubbing his eyes with thumb and forefinger hard enough to start seeing stars. He paused, blinked, and waited until the kaleidoscope copies of Mical slid and focused into a single holo-version of a man again before continuing. "We'd heard reports that they were far more active than usual in the last week but had no intel as to why. You're telling me they're suddenly hunting Jedi artifacts now?"

"Affirmative," Mical confirmed. "But they don't seem aligned with the Sith I met. In fact he went so far as to help me escape the planet so long as it meant that the mercenary group didn't acquire whatever it was I was after."

"And what was that?"

Mical swallowed, looking away for a moment before answering. "The lightsaber of Exar Kun."

Carth had heard of the famed fallen Jedi, as had everyone else in the galaxy. It had been some time since he heard the name, but Kun had been compared to Revan at the beginning of the Jedi Civil War from what he remembered, and the connection did nothing to put Carth at ease.

"I take it that the lightsaber is no longer in your possession?" Carth said, reading the man's body language, sensing his discomfort even from this distance.

"Correct, though I intend to rectify that. And if it makes you or anyone else feel any better, I also left Jedi Master Lonna Vash in the presence of the artifact."

"Vash?" Carth echoed a little too quickly, perking up now. "Another Jedi?"

He'd heard the woman's name before in passing, and while he had no idea who she was or what she looked like, some part of him bristled at the mention of her.

"Yes, survived Malachor," Mical answered, almost as impressed with the feat himself in the retelling. "I don't trust the Exile's brother, but I trust Vash. Not just with the artifact but in general. I think following this Erebus is our best bet at following up on the Sith threat, especially if he claims his Sith master is responsible for what happened at Katarr."

"And you believe that?" Carth countered, tempering a hope that this lead could be worth following despite how dangerous it would be.

"I do," Mical said, nodding gravely. "I also don't think it's a coincidence. It's strange, isn't it? Revan disappears shortly after seeking out General Valen who was exiled for following her orders. We finally track Valen down only for her to vanish, too. And yet despite these setbacks, we run into a Sith that just so happens to be General Valen's brother."

"And not only that, but our interests are aligned," Carth laughed darkly, knowing that the coincidences did not end there, trying not to think of something Bastila had said about the Force and coincidences that he wasn't ready to repeat just yet.

"Our intel first believed that it was the Exchange that placed the bounty on Jedi, General Valen in particular, to draw out whatever Jedi remained so the Sith could hunt them to extinction. But if what you say is true about Nespis, then that means someone else is looking for lost Jedi."

"And whoever that is has just gotten on Erebus' Sith master's bad side," Mical finished. Carth nodded.

"This doesn't look good," he muttered, "But it might just grant us the distraction we need to prepare ourselves."

Prepare. Something about the word as it passed his lips made Carth pause.

The galaxy wasn't prepared for what we found in the Unknown Regions, Nevarra had said about the Star Forge years after the incident on Rakata Prime, the memories rushing back to her waves but the details unfortunately lost in the foam. They weren't meant to be prepared at all.

"That's it," Carth said, his voice barely a whisper, "The Exchange bounty, the rift between the Golden Company and the Sith… this was all part of the plan. And so was Revan. I'm not sure how it all adds up exactly, but while we look into this further we can at least make sure that Republic Space is prepared for… well, I wish I knew what. Anything, I guess."

"What does this have to do with Revan?" Carth heard Mission say, her head poking into the holo-feed.

"Everything, I'm afraid," Mical sighed, grim realization crossing his face as he looked Carth in the eye.

Carth sighed.

"Some things just never change, do they?"


Notes: Needless to say, it's been a while! I've actually written the next three or so chapters in full but am working on editing them down. The hard part about writing about the actual game plot is picking and choosing which bits actually need to be in the story in order to get the full picture, and I found that the easiest way of doing that was just to write absolutely everything out and see what was truly necessary later. So 84 years and tens of thousands of words/drafts later, here we are! I also started working on a few original projects so while that's been a pleasant surprise in terms of bursts of inspiration, it has also resulted in less time focusing on this project. That being said, I haven't forgotten about this fic! Seriously, how could I at this point? As always, thanks everyone!